Cut emissions and save on household bills

Trent Hawkins, Project Director of the Zero Carbon Australia Buildings Plan who will present at the Forum next weekend

Households in Seymour and surrounds can reduce their carbon emissions to zero with four simple steps.

Trent Hawkins, Project Director of the Zero Carbon Australia Buildings Plan, will talk about how this can be done at the Energy Futures Forum in Seymour on November 16.

The four steps are going gas free, fixing the building envelopes, installing energy efficient appliances and lighting, and rooftop solar to power every home.

“Every house in Australia could be emissions free in ten years if we implemented this plan”, said Mr Hawkins.

With this approach, households would produce more electricity than they use, but using less on a daily basis than they do now.

After three years of working on the Plan at environmental think tank Beyond Zero Emissions, he proposes that it is not only possible but that it is realistic and financially viable.

“Australian houses and workplaces are often unnecessarily cold in winter, hot in summer, and expensive to run”, Mr Hawkins added.

“We now have the technologies and know-how to make our buildings far more comfortable, while protecting us from rising electricity and gas bills”, he said.

The Buildings Plan looks at existing Australian buildings, how they are designed, and how these designs could be improved.

The Plan shows that the residential building sector is be able to achieve 53% energy use reduction overall, with some typical home categories seeing over 70% reduction. Commercial building categories can reduce energy use by 44% overall.

With new technologies replacing inefficient and polluting appliances which use gas, and with solar energy produced on the rooftops of households and businesses, we would be well on our way to producing zero emissions.

If implemented, the Buildings Plan would give households and businesses a new level of control over their energy bills, it could remove the need for the polluting and unpopular coal-seam gas industry, and it would stimulate employment in trades and services for the buildings sector by tens of thousands of jobs.

Trent Hawkins will be joining several other speakers at the Energy Futures Forum which will investigate a variety of issues and solutions for embracing renewable energy and turning away from fossil fuels.